ESRF Researchers Discover Unexpected and Promising New Form of Hydride for Hydrogen Storage 4 December 2007

Scientists at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) have discovered a new form of lithium borohydridea material that contains 18 wt% of hydrogen, making it potentially attractive for on-board hydrogen storage in vehicles. The drawback to date of lithium borohydride is that it only releases hydrogen at quite high temperatures (above 300°C).

The team at the ESRF has found a new form of the compound that could possibly release hydrogen in mild conditions. This discovery, completely unexpected from the point of view of theoretical predictions, was published today as a Very Important Paper in Angewandte Chemie.

Researchers at the Swiss-Norwegian experimental stations (beamlines) at the ESRF are currently studying several compounds of light elements with hydrogen and the different forms they take at different pressure and temperature. Lithium borohydride, LiBH4, is one of the compounds they study as it has a high weight content of hydrogen (18%).

The newly discovered form of this compound is promising because it appears to be unstable. Until today, all the known forms of this material are too stable, which means that they dont let the hydrogen go.

This one is really unexpected and very encouraging. Yaroslav Filinchuk, corresponding author

In order to obtain new forms of lithium borohydride, the team applied to the sample pressures up to 200,000 bar. (The pressure of 200,000 bar applied to LiBH4 in the ESRF experiment is about 80 times bigger than the pressure exerted on Earths crust by Mount Everestthe latter is roughly equal to 2.5 kbar). Although impressive, this figure is not a recordmuch higher pressures still can be reached in the lab using the same diamond anvil cell technique, but this was not necessary for this experiment.

Diffraction of synchrotron light was used to determine arrangement of atoms in the resulting materials. In this way two novel structures of lithium borohydride were found. One of them is truly unprecedented and reveals strikingly short contacts between hydrogen atoms.

Combined experimental and theoretical efforts suggest that the new from of LiBH4 can release hydrogen at a lower temperature. Filinchuk explains that the new form becomes even more attractive considering the fact it appears already at 10,000 bar, the pressure used by pharmaceutical companies to compress pellets. The authors argue that this form can be stabilized by chemical substitutions even at ambient pressure. For now, the teams next step is to apply chemical engineering to the compound to freeze the new form at ambient conditions and check whether it shows more favorable hydrogen storage properties than pure lithium borohydride.

Despite the fact that hydrogen is not well detected by X-rays in general, scientists managed to see it thanks to the high brilliance of the ESRF synchrotron light. Although theory failed to predict the novel structure, it fully supports this experimental finding. Therefore, this work presents a breakthrough in experimental studies of hydrogen-rich system, explains the failure of the previous theoretical predictions and suggests the novel form of the compound to be instrumental in obtaining improved hydrogen storage materials, according to the authors.

Synchrotron radiation was recently successfully applied to potential hydrogen storage materials and it turns out to be more useful than generally expected for so light systems. The team at the Swiss-Norwegian Beam Lines at the ESRF will continue to exploit and develop this at first glance unexpected union.

I think it would be cooler to up the temperature a bit and simply fuse the boron and hydrogen. Then you would have a REAL hydrogen economy. As a bonus, free helium! With no radioactivity (from that particular nuclear reaction), the only concern would be everyone going around with high-pitched voices. We’d all sound like Democrats. Never mind.

Filinchuk explains that the new form becomes even more attractive considering the fact it appears already at 10,000 bar, the pressure used by pharmaceutical companies to compress pellets. The authors argue that this form can be stabilized by chemical substitutions even at ambient pressure.

6
posted on 12/05/2007 2:15:30 PM PST
by Moonman62
(The issue of whether cheap labor makes America great should have been settled by the Civil War.)

REAL scientists will solve any pollution problems we have as well as our dependence on foreign oil. The global warming nazis are the laziest and least competent scientists one can find and they do nothing to promote science beyond obtaining government funding.

If the scientists who waste their time writing apocalyptic papers about climate change knew anything about science, they would be inventing or improving something which would further their supposed goals instead of just whining and demanding more taxpayer funding.

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.